Studio Ahwach: Othmane Azoulid - Ahouache N'tfrkhine

It's been a minute since we posted any ahwach - the communal song and dance performance tradition from Tachelhit-speaking regions of Morocco. Ahwach can take on very different forms from place to place or from occasion to occasion. Today's cassette presents an ahwach recording by artists from Tafraoute, led by the singer Othmane Azoulid. We actually posted a tape (now re-upped in FLAC) featuring Azoulid back in 2013. That tape featured an all-male ensemble. Today's tape is an ahwach n'tferkhine - a type of ahwach that features a seated male drum group accompanying a group of female singers. (The work tfrkhine means "young girls" in Tachelhit.) There are quite a few videos on YouTube of ahwach n'tferkine. In some varieties, women's heads are adorned by ornate headdresses. In others, their heads are completely covered by individual white sheets. And in others, as pictured on this cassette's j-card, the women stand shoulder to shoulder in a line and a single long cloth covers all of their heads.

This cassette contains a studio recording of ahwach songs, and the audio quality is very good. Particularly nice is the stereo separation between the different bendir frame drums, which take turns providing rhythmic punctuations. (Actually, on second listen, I think this is just a single bendir, just being panned left, right, or center in the mix to liven up the mix.) And the âwad flutes coming in at the end of some tracks are the icing on top of a lovely cake of naqqus, clapping, bendirs, and zgharits (ululations). 

Ahouache N'tfrkhine أحواش نتفرخين
B'riasat Lfnane Azoulid برئاسة: الفنان أزوليض
[Directed by The Artist Azoulid] (Othmane Azolid)
Box Music cassette 
2011

A1 Ahan Aya Zoulid Nsherek Tamount أهان أيا زوليض نشرك تامونت
A2 Abou Lhawa أبو الهوى
B1 Atbir Rzmed Irriche أتبير رزمد الريش
B2 Ayih Ayan Iaazan Darnaghi أييه أيان إعزان دارنغي

FLAC | 320

Samaoui and Soussiya - Simulacra and Standards for Weddings, Parties, Anything

Here's a sampler from the label Sawt Bab Mansour out of Meknes. 4 long tracks each by a different artist. This was released in the sunny spring of 2001 when Orchestre Hamri scored a smash hit with "Samaoui". The song remains popular today. On revisiting the tape, I recognized another song, "Soussia", that is something of a standard at Moroccan parties (at least at the ones I attend in the San Francisco Bay Area). The two songs are quite different, but they share something in common - they both exist within the realm of Moroccan chaabi music, but refer (sometimes with lyrics, sometimes with musical tropes, and sometimes with both) to musical traditions and bodily experiences not native to the chaabi dance floor.

SAMAOUI

In spring 2001, this song was everywhere in Morocco, coming out of every tape deck, played at every wedding. I even heard Hassan Dariouki's aita haouzia group sing it at a soiree for a bunch of ethnomusicologists in Tangier!

In the early days of Moroccan Tape Stash, I wrote about the early 2000s wave of chaâbi hits that made reference to trance or trance brotherhoods:

"I don't mean pop versions of Gnawa or Jilala songs. Rather, I mean NEW songs with lyrics referring to the spirits or to the experience of trance. What struck me as odd was that most of these songs made no musical reference to trance music of the Gnawa, Jilala or other groups. Rather, they fit the basic mold of chaâbi songs, ready to slip into the repertoire of a wedding band with a viola player and a nicely dressed lead singer"

In retrospect, Al Hamri's "Samaoui / Ha Huma Jaw", while featuring smooth smooth vocals and moderne orchestral string glissandos, does actually make some musical references to the trance traditions. The bendir frame drum is being played in the loopy, topsy-turvy, syncopated way that Jilala musicians play it. The solo viola (as opposed to the orchestral strings) has the unusual processed, throbbing sound featured in Said Senhaji's hit "Aicha al Mejdouba" which, as I noted previously, resembles the throb of the Jilala gasba flute. And the cymbals of the tar tambourine are being played in a way that resembles the qarqaba metal clackers used by Jilala and Gnawa musicians. It's still to my ear a strange juxtaposition:



And yet... the song is undeniably catchy! Our local Moroccan DJ played it at the most recent party I attended, and the crowd ate it up! On the dance floor, everyone sang along "Wa Samaoui / Allah idawi / Aw s7ab el 7aaaaaaal". Samaoui is one of the entities invoked during Gnawa ceremonies. "Oh Samaoui / God heals / Oh friends of the traaaaaance / Bring the incense / bring the charcoal burner / I want to trance". Of course, none of us did trance - there was no incense, no ritual specialist, no guinbri, so it was probably for the best. And yet there we were, miming some of the gestures of trance, mouthing signifiers of trance, to a simulacrum of some of the sounds of trance music. And we enjoyed it, like we did 19 summers ago!

SOUSSIA

Another staple of our local Moroccan parties is the second song on this tape, here called "Soussia". The term soussia is a noun/adjective that refers to something or someone (female) from the Moroccan Souss region. I don't know whether there is an "original" version of this song, but if there is, I'm guessing this is not it. I've never known a proper title for the song - I just think of it as "A Mwi Lalla", or "that Berber-sounding song that gets sung at non-Berber parties".

In this version, sung by Mustapha Baidou, a metal percussion instrument sounds like a naqqus, drums sound like those used in ahwach performances, melody is based in the Soussi pentatonic scales. Yet the lead singer has that smooth delivery of a wedding band singer, and we again hear orchestral string phrases. And at the end of the track, the music shifts into typical chaabi taârida riffing, dropping the pentatonic mode and the naqqus sound.



A quick Google search for chaabi songs called "Soussia" revealed not the same song, but different songs that featured similarly Soussi-styled melodies (pentatonic) and musical tropes (drum timbres, naqqus-sounding percussion, sometimes a synth banjo), typically with lyrics in darija (Moroccan Arabic). An example:



As "Samaoui" invites dancers to simulate the hair-flipping, head-bopping of Jilala or Gnawa trance on a chaabi dance floor, when "Soussia" songs get played, dancers' movements immediately shift from the hips to the shoulders, simulating the style of an ahwach dance.

WEDDINGS, PARTIES, ANYTHING

Trance- and Soussi-styled songs make sense in the repertoire of a well-rounded Moroccan urban Arabophone wedding/party band. When you're playing at a party that goes on for hours, you want to be able to vary things up and pace the event. Wedding parties usually start off with slow and stately music to welcome and ease people into the event. So a wedding band should know at least one or two songs from the Andalusi and/or melhun repertoire to provide this function, as well as some long-form chanson moderne classics from the likes of Abdelwahab Doukkali or Abdelhadi Belkhayat. Wedding musicians don't need to be experts in those repertoires - just need to do a passable job on a couple of songs. They will probably throw in some well-known Middle Eastern hits from Egypt or Lebanon early on, to mix up the groove and allow dancers to mix up their moves. But eventually the floor succumbs to the inexorable pull toward the infectious chaabi beat.

Chaabi (literally, "popular"), is a wide field, that ranges from urbane Andalusi melodies to country aita-based melodies and regional varieties, from simmering slow jams to raucous, explosive bangers, from Houcine Slaoui classics from the 1940s to Hamid Zahir hits from the 1960s to Najat Aatabou hits from the 1980s to Daoudi hits from the 2000s to the latest offerings on YouTube. The viola and the darbuka reign supreme. Ouds may or may not appear. (Of course a keyboard can give you that plucked-string sound, and double as a qanun zither, a banjo, or a horn section too.) Chords were once provided by electric guitars, but those have given way to keyboards as well. But whatever the origins or musical textures of songs may be, chaabi performers slot them into musical suites that inevitably end up with the climactic, raucous, joyful 6/8 groove.

Musics come in and out of the urban wedding band repertoire as the years roll on. When rai music was popular in the 1990s, you sometimes heard a few rai songs at weddings. I'm told that in the 1980s, wedding bands would sometimes have some Bollywood tunes ready (or perhaps some faux-Bollywood-styled chaabi tunes?) in case the bride's array of costumes included an Indian-styled outfit. In my day, said array typically included a Berber-styled outfit, so some Berber-styled songs come in very handy in the repertoire for the moment the bride switches to that outfit.

So "Soussi" songs serve a function within a wedding band repertoire, accompanying a particular moment in the itinerary of the bride's clothing trajectory. On another level, they release the dance floor, temporarily, to a different way of celebrating, a different way for the body to let loose and move. This is also the case with chaabi pop-trance songs like "Samaoui" - the dance floor is given over, momentarily, to trance movements and lyrics, letting people groove and move in a different way. But the chaabi imperative eventually brings the floor back from these excursions. Both "Samaoui" and "Soussia" on this tape finish up with an exit from Soussi- and trance-styled lyrics and sounds, bringing it all back home chaabi-style.

Weddings, parties, anything - and trance and Soussi jams a speciality...

Sawt Bab Mansour presents صوت باب منصور يقدم
Samaoui السماوي
Sawt Bab Mansour cassette, 2001

Al Hamri الحمري
    1) Samaoui السماوي
    2) Ha Huma Jaw هاهما جاو
    3) Shera3 oul Qanun الشراع و القانون

Mustapha Baidou مصطفى بايدو
    1) Soussia السوسية

Âbd al Hamid عبد الحميد
    1) Almajdoubiate المجدوبيات
    2) Sidi ouel Qalb M3akoum سيدي والقلب معاكم
    3) Galuli Ghir Ensah كلولي غير انساه

Al Berbouchi البربوشي
    1) 3lach A Lalla علاش الالة
    2) Ouahia Almra Ouahia واهيا المراة واهيا

Get it all HERE.

PS - I patched a couple of short dropouts in the Al Hamri and Al Berbouchi tracks with versions found on YouTube.

Âita With Guinbri Really Shouldn't Work, But Tagada...

Well whaddya know? The Stash yields another Tagada tape! This dates from around 1992, when Mohamed Louz was still a member of the group. (For some historical info on the group, see our previous Tagada post.)

I wrote previously that Tagada's folk-revival approach was rooted in the âita. This album stretches things a bit, while maintaining a core texture of viola driving the melody, male group or antiphonal vocals and a bendir-driven percussion section.

"Lalla Lgada" leads things off in a typical âita mode, though with what sounds like scissors hearkening back to the âbidat errma. The strange "Ach Ngoul Lik" leads off with a pentatonic viola solo somewhat evoking the amarg tradition of the Soussi rwayes, but then the rhythm enters, featuring a Gnawa guinbri (and some faint qraqeb, I think). It sounds sort of Nass el Ghiwan-ish, except for the continued presence of the viola, which pulls the sound in a different direction. "Âyyitini" goes full Soussi, adding a banjo or lotar and naqqus for that rwayes vibe, though the singing is in Arabic, not Tachelhit.

Finally "Hada Hali" returns viola and bendir to the center of the texture with a real deep âita feel - angular bendir-s, alternating solo vocals evoking shikha song, sliding eventually into trance-based and trance-evoking lyrics, idiomatic viola riffing recalling the sweaty middle-of-the-night when the âita groove gets so heavy and REAL that it crosses over into that zone where all one can do is call prayers upon the Prophet and the saints, hope for deliverance and submit to the groove. At this point in the song, Tagada incorporate the guinbri and qraqeb again. This sounds nothing like Gnawa music, though, resembling much more the saken trance songs of the âita tradition. But with Gnawa signifiers added for intensification? Mixing these elements together is a weird, improbable idea, to which I'm sort of opposed on principle, and yet somehow... it kind of works! Well played, Tagada, well played!



Tagada (تگدة) Edition Hassania cassette EH 1462
01 Lalla Lgada (لالة الگادة)
02 Ach Ngoul Lik (اش نگول ليك)
03 Âyyitini (عيتني)
04 Hada Hali (هذا حالي)

Get it all here.

Awad Mtougha - More of That Down Home Moroccan Fife & Drum

Here's some more of that good âwad-driven ahwach music. Âwad are the high-pitched flutes seen above, Mtougha (or Mtouga) is the area of Morocco from which this particular ahwach style appears to originate, and ahwach is the communal Berber song-dance-singing-drumming genre that differs from region to region in Tachelhit-speaking areas of Morocco.

Here's a bit of a staged performance of the Mtouga ahwach. In addition to the âwad flutes and bendir frame drums, you can see (or at least hear) the tam-tam or tbilat (pair of small kettle drums) and naqqus (struck metal idiophone). And dig the stepping, clapping, and shoulder-shimmying!



Track 5 of this tape is the same as Track 1, but slowed down just a tad. Or Track 1 is the same as Track 5, sped up a bit. They're both here, since I couldn't figure out which was the truer pitch.

Awad Mtougha (Audio Star Cassette)
Track 1 (of 5)

Get it all here.

Bnate Houara - Yeah!

Ya know 'em, ya love 'em! Here's another vintage cassette of houariyat songs. These are all in the standard 6/8 chaâbi rhythm. None of the mind-warping songs in 7/4 -> 10/8 rhythms, which Alaa Sagid identified as "houari tqil" and "houari khfif" in an earlier houariyat post. Still, the groove is undeniable, and these Marrakchiyat pour some crazy energy into it. And when they shift melodic gears mid-song and soar off in a completely unrelated key (see embedded track at 4:27)...  Yeah!!

By the way, the lovely j-card graphic shows two ladies clapping on the ramparts at Essaouira. I don't think this music is typically found as far west as Essaouira - I always understood it to be centered around Marrakech and the surrounding countryside. The tape itself is produced in Marrakech.

Oh, and if the clapping ladies were actually standing on the ramparts as pictured here, they would be at least 35 feet tall.

Track 2 (of 6)

Get it all here.

100% Tamghra! - Soussi Wedding Pop

Yep, its 100% Tamghra, according to the j-card! Tamghra means "wedding" in Tachelhit. The Arabic tag on the left side reads something like "Songs for the sweetest events and Amazigh weddings."

The music is pretty poppy, but many of the timbres are drawn from long-standing Soussi Berber traditions including ahwach (âwad flutes and punchy bendir-s, and punctuations of interlocking clapping) as well as the amarg tradition of the rwayes musicians (namely, the scratchy horsehair rrbab fiddle and the naqqus metal percussion instrument). The electric guitar sometimes sounds like the small Berber guinbri, and sometimes plays righteous, slippery, pentatonic runs.

The musical group is called "Tisslatin N'Ait Baamran" (The Brides of Ait Baâmran). Here's a swell videoclip of the group in action, with wedding ambiance in abundance:


Ait Baâmran is a group tribes located around the area of Sidi Ifni, south of Agadir and Tiznit. The j-card also gives the name "Habiba", and a web search reveals that the singer is known more fully as Habiba Tabaamrant. (Etymological note: Berber nouns become feminine with the addition of "t" at the beginning and end of the word. Thus, "Tabaâmrant" is the feminine of "Baâmran".)

The singer on this tape should not be confused with the very famous singer Fatima Tabaamrant, who sings in the more classic style of the rwais. Habiba works more in a pop mode, as evidenced by this highly entertaining sketch/videoclip:


Track 4 (of 4)


Get it all here.

---

UPDATE:

Gary at Bodega Pop also posted some nice Soussi pop earlier this weekend. And if you like the sound of brides, Brian at Awesome Tapes shared a tape from another Brides group a while back.

Ahwach al-Âwad - Moroccan Fife and Drum

Another ahwach cassette for ya this week. As I mentioned in my last post, there are many different regional forms of ahwach. I don't know exactly where this one comes from, but the cassette production house if in Agadir. Unlike last week's offering, which was heavy on the vocal solos, this ahwach tape features no singing whatsoever. Instead, this music is driven by a pair of riffy, high-pitched âwad flutes. And as with other ahwach-s, you get a slew of punchy bendir-s, plus lots of rhythmic footstepping, handclapping, and raucous exclamations. I hear some sort of naqqus (metal ideophone) here as well.

In some parts of the world, fife and drum ensembles are a favored type of outdoor music for parades and processions. Ahigh-pitched flute is an ideal instrument to cut through the onslaught of loud drums in an outdoor setting. In other locales, the preferred instrument for this setting is the oboe/shawm - another shrill sound that can be heard outdoors above a battery of drums.

In Morocco, the ghaita (oboe) and tbel (barrel drum) are the typical instruments for an outdoor procession. While the ghaita is sufficiently shrill and piercing for outdoor venues, flutes in Morocco tend to be low-pitched and breathy - the gasba flutes played by Jilala musicians are a good example.

The âwad flutes heard on this tape, however, have that clear high sound that is perfect for the drum-heavy outdoor ahwach. The pentatonic, repeating melodies and shrill sound of these âwad tunes remind me of American blues fife and drum tunes, though the Berber rhythms are a little more angular than the rolling blues rhythms:


Ahwach al-Âwad - Ûmar Dahouss: Alhan Amazighia Jdida wa Khalda (Berber tunes, New and Immortal)


Track 4 (of five)

Get it all here.

L'Hajja L'Hamdawya again

Here's another Hamdawya cassette - seems to have been recorded at the same time as the one I posted last week. It has that same electric guitar and funky harpsichordey thing going on. (Plus the catalogue numbers are consecutive.)


Track 2 is the oldie "Hbibi Dyali", recorded by, among others, the great Zohra al Fassia. Track titles are taken right from the j-card except for track 4, which is unlisted. It's a tune I've heard before at Moroccan Arab weddings, played by chaâbi bands when they need to play something that sounds Berber. (This is needed if, as is common, the bride puts on a Berber-style outfit at some point during the wedding.) Note the typically Tachelhit pentatonic melody + use of the clanging naqqus.

1) Shouf ar-Rouida Ma Dir
2) Hbibi Dyali
3) 'Alah A Lalla Hyani
4) Ayla ha Lilila Ayli Awa

5) Ta'rida

Get it here.